


Needing Is One Thing, Getting Is Another

by Jaune_Chat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Amnesia, Angst, Emotional Constipation, Established Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Resolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:41:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat
Summary: After Jack Rollins is badly injured during a mission, he forgets what he is to Brock Rumlow, namely the only person he's ever loved.  But Brock doesn't dare tell him and ruin their still-intact friendship for a romance Jack doesn't remember...
Relationships: Jack Rollins/Brock Rumlow
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53
Collections: Marvel Trumps Hate 2019





	Needing Is One Thing, Getting Is Another

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalika999 (kalika_999)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalika_999/gifts).



> Written for Kalika_999 and QuillOfChoice for Marvel Trumps Hate!

Brock stood in the doorway, hands freshly cleaned of blood, wrapped to stop the split skin from oozing red onto the hospital floor, staring at the man on the bed.

Jack’s head was swathed in bandages, wrapped around his crown where they’d pulled the skin back to do the surgery to put his broken head and face back together, slightly lighter bandages over the pulped flesh on the left side, a soft pad over his eye, and a thicker one on the right side of his jaw and chin. There was barely a part of him that wasn’t bruised, bandaged, splinted, or scraped. Thankfully he was quietly asleep, still but for the rise and fall of his chest.

The doctor’s words rang in Brock’s ears from his meeting with them just outside.

“The surgery was a success. We were able to reconstruct the left side of his face with metal plates, though we were unable to save his left eye. I would expect some kind of memory loss at the least, possibly other brain damage considering the extent of his injuries. We didn’t note too much swelling, which is extremely lucky, and he has luckily remained infection-free, but that is something we’ll need to evaluate when he wakes up. He has broken ribs, lacerations to his fingers, a broken leg and upper arm, several puncture wounds, and blunt force trauma to just about everywhere on his body. His tox screen was… elaborate. His captors forced him to stay awake through various forms of amphetamines and were trying variations of truth serum. Luckily they did not try hallucinogens. Frankly, I’m amazed he’s still alive.”

Brock’s heart had resumed beating once he’d heard the crucial word of “alive”. Anything else was possible if Jack was alive. But looking at Jack now, Brock’s heart was skipping beats. Jack had lost some sight, he was going to be in who knew how much pain, and if his brain wasn’t the same… It was only the tiniest comfort his captors hadn’t tried to drive him into madness with LSD or some other crap. That stuff never really left your system, and Hydra wasn’t going to want someone who might start seeing fluffy pink unicorns or the walls turning into tentacles go on their sensitive missions. The eye was fixable; SHIELD had been putting mechanical eyes into people for years. The body damage could be dealt with, because SHIELD and Hydra had plenty of stuff that the normal public never saw to speed healing. Even the brain damage was negotiable, to an extent. If Jack still had operational discipline, could shoot straight, and listen to orders, they wouldn’t give a particular fuck if he couldn’t remember his childhood.

But if he didn’t remember Hydra, if he didn’t remember his loyalties… Hydra only asked people to join once. Refusals were killed in accidents and shuffled out of the way as quickly as possible. If Jack didn’t remember who he was working for, but still remembered any of what he’d done, he wouldn’t make it out of the hospital bed. Hydra did not take security risks. There were always dumb grunts who would fight for a buck, but true believers were far more rare. Once you learned about Hydra’s secrets, they never let you go unless it was in a body bag.

Brock parked his ass at Jack’s bedside and refused to move. Jack had to be okay. The son of a bitch hadn’t survived the hell Brock had pulled him from to fail now. He just couldn’t, not today of all days…

\--

Jack stirred, and Brock lifted his face from where he’d been sleeping in his chair, head leaning on Jack’s mattress, watching his face to be the first thing Jack saw. He blinked, trying to focus, and confusion turned to relief and recognition. Brock allowed himself a tiny smile, because anything more would see him breaking down and embarrassing himself, and tried to see if there was some way he could kiss Jack without hurting him.

“Sir, you came for me.”

Brock froze. Sir? Jack hadn’t called him that since their first few months with STRIKE, not unless they had to get formal for the brass. After the firefight on the freighter, they’d been on a last-name basis. When things had changed a couple years later, they’d dropped the formal address except when on the job. This was a _hospital_ , not a mission room. And Hydra knew they were screwing; they knew everything. A little leeway for recovery was more than allowed.

“’Course I came, Jack,” Brock said, hoping to spark a smile, even a little bit of one.

“Thanks. I…” Jack looked pained, and Brock held up a cup of water with a straw for him to drink. “Sorry,” he said after he’d had his fill. “I… don’t remember much of what they asked me. Kind of a blur. Don’t remember their faces much.”

Brock knew their faces. Right before he’d-.

“How am I? Feel like shit.”

“The bastards tap-danced on your skull and jammed a pharmacy in your veins. Got your eye, broke your skull and a few more bones to boot, after beating you raw. Gonna be a while before you can go home.”

Brock knew his voice had gotten thick, but he skipped over the summary fast, hoping Jack wouldn’t notice.

“Fuck.” That was all Jack said. The news had to suck, but he took it like a damn champ.

“Doc’s still got work to do. They’ve cleaned out the chemical crap, and they’re going to get you an eye and get you healed up. Then we’ll get you back in the unit.”

“Thanks, Rumlow. All the guys get the five-star treatment too? Sounds like it was bad, getting my dumb ass out.”

Brock’s heart clenched, and he sucked in a breath to keep himself from seeing red, from seeing what Jack had looked like once they’d broken into the interrogation room. “No, just you, Jack. Everyone else was fine. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Dinner in the mess before the mission. Then the plane. The drop. Then… bits and pieces. Pain. Yelling. Then waking up.” He winced. “Still lots of pain.”

“Where do you live?” Brock asked, heart starting to pound. Jack needed another drink, but then recited their mutual address without hesitating.

“We got that two-bedroom for a good price with us splitting the rent. Next to that Mexican place that does falafel.”

Brock watched Jack’s lips move, the right side of his chin stitched and butterflied together from the slashes Brock had deflected from Jack’s neck. He’d put two into the guy who’d done it, and then wasted ammo and put in two more. The guy who’d bashed in the left side of Jack’s face with a crowbar, who’d broken his skull and smashed his eye, who’d been marginally smart enough to not have guns in an interrogation room but had wanted to “get rid of the evidence” when STRIKE had breached by trying to make Jack an unrecognizable mess of shattered bone and shredded meat, _that_ guy Brock had strangled with his bare hands until the asshole’s face had turned black. The rest of the torture crew had gotten a severe case of lead poisoning, courtesy of the rest of the squad.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Brock said, trying to keep his voice light. “Good thing too, I’d hate to have to find a new roommate.”

Jack made a tiny nod of assent. “Thanks. Good thing I remembered. I’d hate to have to find a new apartment.”

Brock just nodded, said a few more idle, encouraging things until Jack drifted back to sleep. After being tortured for nearly 36 hours by independent idiots trying to get a leg up on SHIELD operational intel, and kept awake every second of that time, he would be sleeping for days. There was a long moment of quiet as Jack’s breathing evened out, and behind his teeth, Brock muffled a scream. 

“Roommates” was what they called each other in public, but as of the last three years it had been colored with the “something more” that had developed between them. Friends with benefits had been the start of it, but Jack didn’t even seem to remember that much. Brock mumbled something out loud about letting Jack sleep, meaningless with Jack already sacked out in the bed, and left the room, shutting the door behind him. Shit. _Shit_. He’d wanted to welcome Jack home the most visceral way he could handle, wanted to show Jack the stupidly large bed he’d gotten for their room, wanted to show him the tungsten carbide ring he wanted to put on his hand.

And Jack didn’t even _remember_.

All those pictures of them together and all their little stupid gifts to each other were all over the apartment, and Brock couldn’t stand to explain, couldn’t try to force Jack to be who he didn’t remember he was. It would be like trapping Jack, and he’d just gone through hell, strapped to a table or in a tiny room, trying to force truth out of him that he refused to tell. Brock couldn’t do that to him, not even if it killed him.

Locking down a storm of pent-up emotion that had no release, Brock went to scrub any trace of their relationship out of their apartment.

\--

It had taken another month of healing and rehab before Jack was ready to go home. With tailored drugs and low-grade healing serums, he’d healed up clean. It wasn’t the same stuff used for Hydra’s more irreplaceable assets (that stuff was more expensive and experimental than the higher-ups wanted to waste on the rank-and-file soldiers), but several cuts above what “modern” medicine used in typical hospitals. There was a lot of stuff not available to the general public, just because some scientists and government oversight committees got squeamish about human trials. Jack didn’t mind being the guinea pig, as long as he was able to work again.

A whole month, and he didn’t remember anything more. He remembered most of his history, loyalty, missions, specs, and protocol, damn near everything except most of the torture… and what he’d meant to Brock.

At least he was alive. Maybe there was a chance they could start again.

Brock quashed that hope as soon as he thought of it. It’d been luck Jack had ever wanted him anyway. And how would he even start to explain that? Bring Jack home to an apartment he remembered, and then hope he’d find the condom, lubes, toys, and mementos and go, “Oh yeah, Brock and I are a thing.” More likely Jack’s suspicious side would surface and he’d think Brock was trying to manipulate him into being an easy release, a convenient hole. They were Hydra, after all, and if you didn’t reach for every advantage, someone else would and likely hurt you in the process.

Brock knew it was on his head for not reaching for this, but if he couldn’t have Jack back like how’d they’d been, he’d rather not start off as enemies.

It had taken Brock the whole month to get the apartment ready. He’d started the first night he’d come back, moving Jack’s clothes back to his room, moving his own clothes back to his closet, but had gotten sidetracked again and again. That was the shirt Jack’d worn to that bar they’d went to in Cabo, those socks Jack had thrown to the side of the big bed in Brock’s room the night before the mission, the sweatshirt Brock had left in Jack’s closet still smelled like Jack’s aftershave…

It had been too much to do at once. He’d moved things a little at a time, a few shirts here, making the bed there. Moving a few things into a box. Separating their stuff in the bathroom. Both of them were Hydra-paranoid enough to avoid taking pictures with their phones or exchanging personal remarks through text, so at least Brock didn’t have to become a hacker or something just to get of incriminating evidence. Jack, however, had a Polaroid he used sometimes, and twice they’d taken pictures in a photobooth (a _lot_ of alcohol was involved each time). Gotten rid of some little trinkets and gifts bought on whims. Those went in the box Brock shoved in the back of the closet.

He’d even separated their food again, his Deathwish coffee apart from Jack’s tea. It was like turning back the clock, like losing the last three years of their relationship, and _knowing_ he was too chickenshit to try again.

\--

_Three years ago_

They were still sore from the mission aftermath and the godawful ride home in the cargo plane. Enough that they had just showered and changed at base and flopped down on the sofa with groans of relief once they’d gotten home, both of them utterly disinclined to move. Brock had re-ordered their favorite Chinese food from his phone and Jack had found some movie on Netflix. A nice mindless action flick, lots of explosions and one-liners, with a good dose of T & A and plenty of shirtless dudes, which Brock appreciated because his sexuality was “willing” and Jack appreciated because he liked looking at people who had good workout routines.

They’d eaten and Brock had been comfortable with sagging a little closer to Jack on the sofa. Of Jack’s arm falling naturally onto his shoulder, fingers idly caressing his shoulder through the cotton of his t-shirt. His touch left little trails of fiery sensation behind on Brock’s skin, and he turned just enough to catch Jack’s eye, seeing him watching him back, mouth a little open, lips moist, color high in his cheeks. But he looked comfortable and certain, and Brock had leaned into it, comfortable and warm as Jack’s hand had dropped to his thigh, sliding over to his slowly hardening dick. Brock had pushed into Jack’s grip to let him know in no uncertain terms what he wanted. He’d dropped his own hand to find Jack interested too. Letting Jack rub him hard, then frantic, then to the point of bliss, coming hot and sticky into his boxers and reveling in his touch. Leaning over to yank Jack’s pants and boxers down to suck him with all the skill he possessed until he gasped and spilled over Brock’s tongue.

So damn comfortable that they’d gone to Brock’s room and worked another two orgasms out of each other over the course of the night, and slept tangled up in each other until noon.

\--

How the hell was he going to reproduce that perfect moment of when they’d just _clicked?_ Could he? Was it even possible? Normally Brock didn’t give two shits about fair, except this was Jack. If he tricked Jack into it, if he held all the cards, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be comfortable, it would always be tense. He didn’t want a convenient hole, even though he thought it had been that for nearly two years before he realized, way too slowly, that Jack was more than that. He wanted the person he loved best in the world to look at him like he meant everything to him. 

Brock nudged the box containing Jack’s Polaroids and the photobooth pictures further into the closet. Also inside was that dumb stuffed banana he’d won for Jack at that lame carnival, the paracord bracelet Jack had gotten made for him at a farmer’s market nearby, the vest that’d saved Jack’s live in that raid in Chicago, the gun stock that had broken in Brock’s hands in that sonic blast during the Manhattan Attack. The little box with the tungsten carbide ring Brock had been intending to give Jack that fateful afternoon.

That a dumbass cell of guys with more balls than brains and a rhetoric they couldn’t keep straight had captured Jack out of some ridiculous idea that they could get wind of the intel SHIELD had on them and their rinky-dink compound and had captured Jack mostly by accident… it _burned_ that Jack had gotten three-quarters killed for no reason. And everything worthwhile about the last three years had been the price.

This wasn’t some messed up “While You Were Sleeping” rom-com. Brock didn’t want Jack to be forced to acknowledge him. If it wasn’t Jack’s own idea, Brock wouldn’t try to force it to happen.

Brock felt guilty, taking all of this away, but he’d feel worse if Jack came home to an apartment full of something he didn’t remember. Being a friend with Jack, an easy friend, was something they’d been three years ago and could be again, but welcoming him with open arms (and ass) would look desperate and sad. Particularly because Brock had had a month to say something, and hadn’t. And now it was too late.

Jack was due home any minute. Brock had sprung for Italian from a place a couple of miles away they’d found on accident when they’d been moving in and gotten lost. Jack raved about their garlic bread and manicotti, and they had gotten food there plenty of times before they’d started swapping fluids. Dinner like that couldn’t be interpreted as a romantic gesture, just a nice welcome home meal for a friend who’d had a hell of a time.

Brock wiped the table down nervously and uselessly. He usually kept a pretty neat space, because he hated coming home from shoveling shit to have to shovel his own mess just to go to bed, but now the apartment sparkled like something out of a magazine. Every time he’d found something of Jack’s around the place, he’d clean and organize where he’d found it so he wouldn’t miss something else. And when he wasn’t being Mr. Clean, he’d been hitting his own exercise gear until he ached. Anything to distract from the ache in his chest (and lower) that Jack wasn’t there. Jack’s text that he was ready to be discharged would have sent Brock scrambling to meet him at the hospital, but SHIELD regulations had an escort to take him home. Tragic experience had taught them to keep happy reunions to controlled, private quarters.

The keys rattled in the lock, and Jack came in carrying his bag of clothes from the hospital, sniffing the air with appreciation.

“Antoine’s?” he said incredulously, staring at the kitchen table with wide eyes. Brock stood beside the table awkwardly, pouring the Cabernet Jack liked into a glass and pulling the chair away.

“Uh, yeah. Thought you might like some real food, instead of the hospital swill,” Brock said, pouring wine for himself. He stopped from asking to take Jack’s bag, stopped himself from stepping up to kiss him, or push him against the wall and pull his pants down and tell him how damn much he’d missed him with the world’s best blowjob. He restrained himself enough to just give Jack a brotherly hug, pounding him on the back (not too hard, because of the just-mended ribs and stitches), and remembering to let go before he’d hung on for too long. At least he hoped he did.

Jack stared at Brock for a moment, and then his stomach growled. He looked pale and thin, even after the rehab, and his face had new scars. The mechanical replacement gave his left eye a strange cast, but he still looked sexier than ever to Brock. It took every ounce of willpower he had to not suck face with him until they both had to come up for air. It was only a slight stirring south of the border that got Brock to look away and quickly sit down so he could hide his incipient hard-on.

Jack sat down just after Brock, dropping his bag on the floor. “Thanks, Rumlow. This is… really nice.”

“Anything for you, man. I’m just glad you’re okay,” Brock said, watching Jack take a bite of food and make a soft moan of appreciation. Blood rushed south so fast Brock thought he was going to start knocking on the underside of the table, and he grabbed his wine to distract himself.

Jack, thank you, didn’t seem to notice. 

Brock used the crushing disappointment to try to get through dinner while acting like a totally normal human being who wasn’t sitting across from his nearly-one-fiancé. 

\--

Jack shut his locker and turned to Stephanowitz and Taggert next to him. “What the hell us up with Rumlow?”

Taggert choked on the water he was drinking, and Stephanowitz glared at him before turning to Jack.

“Like what?”

“I finally get home from the hospital and the apartment’s so clean I think you could eat off the floor, and Brock’s got food from Antoine’s Italian spread out like Thanksgiving dinner.”

Taggert took another long drink of water and Stephanowitz sighed before answering.

“The guy was crawling the walls while you were out. Beat himself up that you got caught. Went apeshit on the guys who did it. Guess he’s trying to make up for everything, or thinks he need to.”

Someone else making a choking sound behind him, and Jack turned quick enough to see Hernandez elbowing Westfahl, hard. He turned back to see Taggert still drinking, and Stephanowitz glaring at him. Abruptly, everyone turned and finished up getting dressed, scooting out of the locker room before Jack could corner anyone else to ask questions.

There was no way he was going to ask Brock directly, which was why he had asked the rest of the squad while Brock had already gone out to the briefing room. Brock alternated between being almost hoveringly attentive, and then suddenly pulling a vanishing act. It didn’t match up from what Jack remembered of him, so what the hell had happened during the day-and-a-half Jack had been captured and the month of rehab? He felt like he was in a joke where everyone knew the punchline but him.

\--

The pain throbbed against the inside of Jack’s skull, a pulsing bass drum of agony across his temples and forehead that wasn’t going away anytime soon. The doctors had warned him that getting half his damn face replated with metal was going to give him headaches every now and then, and all he could do was take some of the pills they gave him and sleep it off. Groaning, he lay himself back down on the bed, and wished he’d thought to turn off the light.

He’d been back at work for a month, and while the first mission had gone well, the second one had damn near flattened him with the pain in his head once they’d finished. Brock had let him skip all the post-mission crap and nearly ordered him to go home, looking like he wanted to take Jack home himself. It’d been all Jack could do to call an Uber and drag himself into his apartment, and nearly hadn’t made it onto the bed.

The apartment door opened and closed some indeterminate time later and Brock’s footsteps came closer. They paused at his open door, and then came a soft, “Jack?”

“ _Head_ ,” Jack said, in the only explanation he felt up to giving. Brock turned the light off and pulled the door more shut, leaving. Jack felt grateful for that, and drifted for a little until the door opened again. His nose smelled his favorite tea, something he’d picked up a taste for in Hong Kong, and he heard the rattle of his pill bottle opening, and heard the click of a pill on his bedside table. Brock’s footsteps retreated, and Jack sat up enough to cram the pill in his mouth and swallow half the tea in one go. It was fragrant, steeped just the right amount of time, with the precise right amount of condensed milk. Jack laid back down and waited for the banging in his head to stop, eyes shut in the dimness of his room.

Then his eyes flew open. Brock knew what his favorite tea was, that was easy enough to guess from just a glance in the cupboard. But where the hell had he learned exactly how to make it how Jack liked it? The man drank bargain-basement coffee from a Keurig, and when he couldn’t have that, had the most godawful crap excuse for coffee that was in the breakroom or gas station without even bothering to doctor it with anything. He didn’t seem to care what Jack drank, as long as it didn’t dent his coffee supply. So when the hell had that changed?

\--

It wasn’t in Hydra to admit weakness, but Jack knew he was one or two cards short of a full deck. His history seemed good, he remembered most of the missions (some early ones blurred, because he wasn’t a damn computer, and a couple of the most recent were mostly gone, but he’d had his head broken, so Hydra wasn’t worried about it), his obstacle course and targeting scores were within a few points of his pre-injury ones, and an eval from a counselor attached to SHIELD (and aligned with Hydra) had declared him ready for combat and unlikely to accidentally flip out and freeze, or injure anyone in a flashback. That was about the only “good” thing about his capture; he didn’t remember most of it or the torture, so he’d escaped the worst effects of PTSD. As far as Hydra was concerned, he had been ready to go. The last three months had shown he hadn’t lost his edge, even if he did get headaches that were a small torture in and of themselves.

But the guys kept pussyfooting around conversations with him. They’d drop a subject mid-sentence, hesitate before speaking as if mentally revising what they were going to say, and suddenly go silent when he entered a room. It wasn’t about the injury. They’d welcomed him back with open arms and shit talking, as usual. It wasn’t _exactly_ the amnesia either, because they joked about it too, or filled him in on some recent in-joke he’d forgotten or been in the hospital for.

No, it was Rumlow. If the conversation drifted anywhere near Rumlow, that’s when things started getting awkward. That first day in the locker room had only been a preview of how things were now. And he couldn’t figure out _why_. They’d been roommates for five years, known each other for ten. They’d been good friends, best friends even, for most of that time. No one seemed to act like they’d had some major fight, and Jack couldn’t figure out what everyone was talking around. And he was certain they wouldn’t tell him without it getting dragged out of them.

\--

Brock came out of his room, body running with sweat, drops following the lines of his exposed abs as he drank down a bottle of water on the way to the bathroom. He’d been at the barbells again, working himself into exhaustion despite the hard day of training. He looked good, he always looked good, but now he looked lean, sharp, and hard in a way that Jack really appreciated. Something about the way he arched backward to stretch sent a low-down pulse of lust surging through him, and he felt himself fill out a little against the confines of his jeans. It felt natural, easy as breathing, and Jack felt himself smile as if by reflex.

Then blinked in confusion, and retreated back to his room. He shoved one hand down his pants and felt the evidence for himself, just to completely convince himself that it hadn’t been a fluke. Then he sat down, head in his hands, and tried to remember what his body was trying to tell him.

\--

The next day, he waited until the locker room was almost empty, and turned to confront the last straggler, planting himself in front of the door and staring with an implacable glare.

“Start talking.”

Westfahl blanched and looked around for the non-existent secondary exit. 

“Brock Rumlow. What aren’t you telling me about Brock?”

Westfahl’s face went one shade paler.

“Because there’s something more going on than what you guys are telling me. And I hate being left out of the loop.”

Westfahl swallowed as Jack took a few steps forward, looking like he was about to pass out. And slowly, painfully, nodded.

He talked. And Jack remembered.

\--

Jack ambushed him inside the apartment. Brock’s guard had been down after the hell of a day he’d had at work, and once he’d registered _Jack_ just inside the door, his training just failed him when Jack rushed him. He let himself get pushed against the wall, Jack’s arms planted on either side of him so he could stare right into his eyes.

Brock swallowed hard at the look on Jack’s face. He looked _pissed_ , in the kind of way he never allowed himself during missions, a bubbled-up fury barely held back as he caged Brock in against the wall, hands close enough to his head for Brock to feel the heat of his skin.

“I know you. I know you better than damn near anyone else. And somehow you know _me_ better. Is that right? You know what’s better for me?”

_Oh, shit._

“Westfahl cracked. I dropped a few guesses and he cracked like a damn pinata. But he didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t figured out on my own.” Jack leaned closer, his lips right next to Brock’s ear. Despite the anger radiating off of him, it was the closest they’d been since the incident, and all Brock wanted to do was turn his head and bite into Jack’s neck, soothing the sting of teeth with his tongue.

“I know what your cum tastes like.”

All of Brock’s blood turned to ice.

“I know you have a spot on your left thigh that makes you open up wide for me. I know you can’t get enough of sucking my dick, and you like how you look when I come all over your chest. You say you hate it when I mess up your hair, but you get harder when I pull it while riding you. You came so hard you cried when I ate your ass the first time, and I got to fuck you damn near to sleep afterwards.”

He went quiet for a minute, and Brock tried to unfreeze, to explain, but couldn’t.

“So that’s it? That’s what everyone in the group’s been dancing around? We’re just fuckbuddies?”

Brock felt a wave of relief and shame. He knew. He knew at least some of it; he’d figured enough out that maybe…

“Yeah,” Brock said, voice catching before his traitor tongue could spill out anything else incriminating.

“Why not say anything?”

Brock’s voice came back, and he managed something sane and not too incriminating. “You didn’t remember. Didn’t want to say, ‘Welcome back, now drop and spread ‘em.’ You probably would’ve punched me.”

A moment of silence that seemed to stretch on too long. “And that’s it?”

Brock panicked and nodded, cool as a cucumber. 

Jack let him go, and went back to his room. He still looked pissed, but at least he hadn’t yelled at Brock that he was moving out. Once he calmed down, he might be ready to resume some or any of those acts he’d so blatantly listed in a way that had Brock pressing his back into the wall as his knees threatened to buckle.

Brock braced himself against the wall for another ten minutes, and then escaped to the bar down the street and called himself a coward for the next hour.

\--

Jack waited until Brock had left to finally cross one last boundary. He knew this was probably it, and that if he had any integrity left, that he’d pack up and leave before invading Brock’s privacy. But something didn’t sit right. Jack’s memories were fragmentary: he remembered sex, but there had to be something more to it, at least for himself if not for Brock. But he wouldn’t have kept that secret from Brock, not for three damn years. There was more here, more than even Westfahl and the others had known, more than Brock had been willing to admit.

He shoved open the door, and a flash of memory, of the two of them splayed across the over-large bed, played in his mind’s eye. Another flash, of them walking around a furniture store, assessing the beds and mattresses like they were important parts of tactical equipment. Buying a bed together.

Fuckbuddies. Like hell.

Jack began to rifle through the drawers, lifting the mattress, looking underneath the bed. A few skin mags. Some shoes. Toys, condoms, and lube in the bedside drawers, ones that brought a few heat-flushed memories to his cheeks. Then the closet, one side conspicuously empty. Left empty for Jack. His breath caught, and then he spied a cardboard box sitting in the back corner of the closet behind Brock’s clothes, half-covered with an old blanket.

He hauled it out and opened it up. And the past spilled out with it.

\--

Brock opened up the door quietly, like he was trying to infiltrate an enemy stronghold. He’d just about made up his mind. He’d leave. This was all his fucking fault; he hadn’t protected Jack from getting hurt, he hadn’t been honest with him and still couldn’t stop being a coward long enough to tell him the truth. He’d lost the best thing he’d had going because he couldn’t man up long enough to do it.

His bedroom door was half-open, and the light was on.

His heart froze. Without intervention, his body walked over and pushed open the door all the way. Jack was sitting on the bed, the traitorous box from the back of the closet next to him, the pictures, souvenirs, and that damn stupid stuffed banana all strewn out everywhere. And Jack was holding the small black box.

Brock made some inarticulate noise of protest.

Jack looked up. His eyes were a little red, and he held the box out, the lid open. Brock’s stupid past-self had written the date of his planned proposal on the inside, because Past Brock had been an overconfident asshole.

“I couldn’t,” he managed to say, before Jack could talk. “You didn’t remember. Damn hard to explain that. I didn’t… I didn’t know how.”

Jack held out the box with more urgency, and Brock took it, hands remarkably not shaking.

“I’m demi, you know that, right?”

From the blank look on Brock’s face, Jack got the message that no, he _didn’t _know that.__

__“If I didn’t already trust you, care for you, want you, _love you_ , then I wouldn’t have been doing _anything_ with you. That’s just how I work. If you were calling us fuckbuddies, it was because I knew you weren’t ready to call it anything else yet. At least, until I found this.”_ _

__Brock felt like he’d been struck with a small bolt of lightning._ _

__“You kept all of this anyway. Even if I might never remember.”_ _

__“If there was any chance, even if it was one in a million, I had to take it. ‘Cause it’s you, Jack. I was gonna go, if you hated me. But I would’ve hated myself, for losing…”_ _

__Jack grabbed the ring out of the box and shoved it into Brock’s hand, extending his own. Brock slid it on Jack’s finger._ _

__“I don’t want to lose anything else,” Jack said, holding Brock’s hand over the ring. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”_ _

__Brock tightened his grip and pulled Jack into a hard embrace, the first they’d had since Jack had been captured. He’d missed holding him so much, he’d nearly forgotten how Jack’s long arms nearly swallowed him up._ _

__“Stay with me.”_ _

__“I will.”_ _

__“I’m-” Whatever else Brock had been going to say was stopped by Jack’s kiss, hard and demanding at first, then softening into something slow and familiar, the kind of make-outs they’d enjoy when there hadn’t been time for anything more strenuous. They were _satisfying_ , filling up the cracks in Brock’s heart that had been left by his reaction to Jack’s condition, the fear that he couldn’t reach for who he really wanted. But Jack had pushed through; it didn’t matter if he didn’t remember all the specifics, he remembered _them_. Brock tore his mouth away from Jack’s to kiss down to his neck, using his hands to unbutton Jack’s shirt. Jack moaned, his hands caressing Brock’s back, threading through his hair. As soon as he had access to more skin, Brock moved his mouth again, down Jack’s collarbone, pausing there at a responsive spot as Jack tensed and shivered._ _

__Jack dropped one hand to palm Brock’s ass, and then moved to fumble off his belt. Definitely on board with that, Brock barely broke his rhythm as he pulled his shirt over his head and helped Jack get him naked. Jack pulled back enough to look Brock up and down, and grinned at him._ _

__“All the guilt-lifting paid off,” he said, and flipped their positions, sliding off the bed to his knees and pushing Brock’s legs apart. Brock thought about protesting, but didn’t do anything other than curse as Jack took him in his mouth, getting him all the way hard in seconds, and moved on him steadily, one hand guiding his erection, the other drifting up Brock’s hard stomach, scratching lightly in a way that drove him crazy._ _

__“Oh fuck, so good, Jack…” Brock gasped out. Jack was moving slow, but it felt amazing, the slow dance of his tongue and the caress of his hand as he cupped and gently tugged at Brock’s balls. He felt himself getting way too close, too fast, just the fact that Jack was here, Jack was with him, still loved him, still wanted to marry his stupid ass, was enough to get him teetering on the edge. Jack, the marvelous bastard, felt it when Brock was on the cusp and abruptly stopped._ _

__Normally Brock would have just cursed in every language he knew and demand to start, but instead he sat up and dragged Jack up the bed. He hissed as his hard dick made contact with Jack’s jeans, but resumed kissing Jack as he braced himself on the bed over Brock. Hands free to do what they wanted, Brock finished getting Jack’s pants worked down. Jack wasted no time in grinding down, their naked erections sliding together, drawing a soft gasp from Jack and a moan from Brock._ _

__“’Touched for the very first time,’ Jack?” Brock asked, pulling back from his kiss, and Jack laughed long and loud, falling to the side while still holding onto Brock._ _

__“Jesus, you used that line our first time together, right? Get new material; I have amnesia, I’m not stupid.”_ _

__“I dunno, seemed fitting.” Brock grinned, and Jack grasped the side of his face to kiss him hard and thoroughly. Brock returned the gesture, hands oddly soft against the left side of Jack’s face where it had been repaired. He ran one gentle finger down the reconstructed curve of the cheekbone, and then Jack dropped on hand to caress along Brock’s thigh. He gasped as Jack found the right spot after a moment, legs parting around him, giving Jack more room to grind down again and again._ _

__“Fuck, yes, Jack… So good,” Brock gasped out, rolling his hips to meet Jack, kissing his face, mouth, neck, whatever presented itself, Jack returning the favor, mapping every part of Brock he could reach with his mouth, whispering half-heard endearments that Brock was sure he didn’t deserve._ _

__Jack’s left hand was near his shoulder, and Brock could feel the bite of the ring against his flesh when Jack pushed him into the mattress. He threw his head back, panting, and found his voice again._ _

__“Love you,” he said, saying it out loud for the first time. “Love you, Jack.”_ _

__“Yesss…” Jack hissed, gripping Brock hard and sliding them together faster._ _

__“Want you, always. Want you here, with me.”_ _

__Jack abandoned his kissing to stare into Brock’s eyes, hips moving faster, Brock’s orgasm building fast._ _

__“Wanna _marry_ you, show you off, show the world you’re _mine-!_ ”_ _

__Jack gasped and came hot across Brock’s dick and stomach, burying his face his Brock’s shoulder, hot tears mingled sweat flowing down his face. Brock held Jack with one hand and quickly finished himself off with the other, a few extra strokes before he came, his mess mingling with Jack’s between them._ _

__“I wanted to hear that,” Jack whispered after a long moment._ _

__“Yeah, I should have said it a long time ago,” Brock whispered back, the best apology he could give._ _

__Jack pulled back to lie beside him, gripping their hands together for a moment, before pulling back because of the mess._ _

__“Come on, I’m not sleeping in the wet spot,” Jack said. He stood and reached out for Brock, pulling him upright, tugging him towards the bathroom. While Brock got the shower at the right temperature, Jack dug in the back of one of his drawers, feeling for a small package he’d taped up there two years back, or so he hoped he remembered. It certainly was something he’d do, at any rate, and this would be an ideal hiding place… His questing fingers found the small envelope and he smiled as he ripped it open, letting a ring similar to the one on his own hand tumble into his palm._ _

__Brock turned at that moment, and stared at Jack, slack-jawed. Jack grabbed his hand, heedless of the dripping water, the pushed the ring onto his finger._ _

__“Past me still has good taste,” Jack said, and threaded his fingers through Brock’s._ _

__“Love him too,” Brock said when he found his voice again, and pulled Jack into the shower with him, shutting the door behind them._ _


End file.
